Cristina Odone is a journalist, novelist and broadcaster specialising in the relationship between society, families and faith. She is the director of communications for the Legatum institute and is a former editor of the Catholic Herald and deputy editor of the New Statesman. She is married and lives in west London with her husband, two stepsons and a daughter. Her new ebook No God Zone is now available on Kindle.

Louise Mensch is right to make herself beautiful for her husband: only in Britain would anyone make a fuss

I like to think I'm acclimatised to the idiosyncracies of this island nation. I've lived here for 30 years; I've married an Englishman, with whom I have an English daughter and two English stepsons. Yet every now and then something crops up that makes me feel as alien as if I were on Mars. Today's story about Louise Mench MP was a case in point. The good-looking 40-year-old Tory MP for Corby and East Northamptonshire spoke about dressing up for her husband. She told an interviewer she was anxious to look good for Peter Mensch, the American rock band manager whom she married last summer.

She might as well have claimed to go in for a spot of S&M in the Cabinet Rooms, such is the outcry in the wake of her comments. Already the sisterhood has condemned Mrs Mensch on Twitter, claiming her admission makes them feel "queasy" and "outraged", and we can be sure Glenda Slaggs up and down Fleet Street are sharpening their quills to draw blood. Louise, how COULD you?

The Mensch confession would have passed unnoticed in Italy, France or Spain. Latin women take pride in their sex appeal. They know that looking good is only 5 per cent what nature gave you and 95 per cent what you put into it. Grooming, exercising, dieting, dyeing, and beautifully cut clothes – they take time, grit and money, but Latin women figure it's all worth it, because it makes them feel good as well as look good. And it keeps the men on their toes. Of course it's a compliment to the husband, when you sweat through 50 stomach crunches, don a Dolce & Gabbana bustier, and get your hair highlighted at Michael John's. But let's be honest – the beauty regime is also sending out a message to other men, and to the competition: I'm on top form.

British women just don't get it. The suggestion that a woman should crimp and preen for the delectation of a man (and, subliminally, all men) runs counter to everything feminists have taught them. No self-respecting feminista should worry about what she looks like! Husbands (and partners) be damned: let women look hairy, fat and grey, thus proving that they are loved for their substance not their form.

Feminists, who fought to have a choice in how to live their lives, now will not allow anyone to deviate from the "norm" they have imposed. It seems perverse, and Louise Mensch and other female rebels are right to ignore this diktat. Women should be free to choose what they wear when their husband comes home. If it turns them on to wear a set of Playboy bunny ears, stockings and nothing else, so be it: women's liberation was fought to secure their right to do so.